This latest incident had a better ending, but it left us asking what systems failed to again allow a child to be put in a potentially unsafe situation.

CPS confirms to CBS13 it made contact with Rosemarie Chavez at the hospital where she gave birth, outside its jurisdiction in Grass Valley. But before CPS could legally take the child away, Chavez took off with the infant.

“She had both a history of drug abuse and child neglect,” said Russ Brown with Yuba County CPS.

He says CPS investigators went to known relatives and searched for Chavez, but it would take more than five days until deputies were notified the child was gone.

Why did it take so long?

“Our child protective services people are trained in this, this is what they do, they go out and locate these children,” Brown said. “That’s the work they were doing.”

He says the case featured a legal maze, because the baby was born in Nevada County. When CPS exhausted its search for the baby, it called in law enforcement which found the baby within hours.

Brown says CPS adjusted its procedures and says this case is unrelated.

“We definitely feel fortunate that right now the baby is in foster care, the baby’s safe, the baby’s protected, and that’s the work that the people here at child welfare do, that’s the work they do everyday,” he said.